In such cases it appears that recourse was had to divination, and the omens which were obtained decided whither the next effort of the invader should be directed.
Priests doubtless accompanied the expeditions to superintend the sacrifices and interpret them on such occasions.

According to Diodorus, the priests in Babylonia were a caste, devoted to the service of the native deities and the pursuits of philosophy, and held in high honor by the people.

It was their business to guard the temples and serve at the altars of the gods, to explain dreams and prodigies, to understand omens, to read the warnings of the stars, and to instruct men how to escape the evils threatened in those various ways, by purifications, incantations, and sacrifices.

They possessed a traditional knowledge which had come down from father to son, and which none thought of questioning.

The laity looked up to them as the sole possessors of a recondite wisdom of the last importance to humanity.
With these statements of the lively but inaccurate Sicilian those of the Book of Daniel are very fairly, if not entirely, in accordance.